Being Weird On An Airplane

I started writing this post flying from Austin, Texas to Las Vegas, Nevada, having an experience that seems to be par for the traveling course these days: there was a person on my flight whose behavior was unsettling.

I am a nervous flier anyway, but I was flying Southwest, which meant that before we even took off, there was a Lord of the Flies-esque open-seating process. Even with the relatively new Southwest system in which we line up by our assigned number, folks still try and get on that plane 10 seconds earlier than someone else, anyone else. I took an elbow to the kidney just handing over my boarding pass.

Southwest Foot

Gross, but not scary. Thus: allowed.

Soon after taking off, I realized that there was a Crazy Lady on my flight.

CL was a very normal-looking middle-aged woman wearing capri pants, naturally, and she was in 1A, which basically meant that her behavior was onstage for all to experience. Before we had reached our cruising altitude and the seatbelt light went off, CL stood right up. CL opened an overhead bin and shoved her hands inside, pushing around everyone else’s stuff. Then she slammed the bin shut.

She opened the next overhead bin. Shove, shove, SLAM.

This continued as she agressively worked her way down the aisle. She was soon standing over me, slamming overhead bins while obviously not finding what she was looking for, when the flight attendant politely asked her to “calm down.”

I got my camera ready to film what I assumed to be the impending insanity. All weird events on airplanes are filmed now, and there was something reassuring about hiding behind a camera.

The flight attendant held her ground (as it were.) “You are slamming those way too hard.”

CL stood in the middle of Southwest Flight 856 and screamed, “What did you do with my brown backpack?!?!”

CL put her hands on her hips and took a fighting stance while I wondered which combination of forbidden lighters and 4 oz. liquids were in the brown backpack. The flight attendant was entirely unfazed. “I need you to sit down. I will find your bag.”

As CL crawled back into 1A, she banged her head on the ceiling and screamed in pain.

In general, I like weird stuff. I like crazy strangers. I am pretty open to being irreverent. But I do not believe in screwing around while ON an airplane. There is too much recent history for fellow passengers not to react when someone starts causing a scene.

The woman sitting next to me whispered, “Did you hear about that pilot who went crazy on a flight to Vegas?”

At this point, Crazy Lady once again stood up and once again slammed her head. She then very slowly and dramatically made her way to the bathroom, holding onto the walls for support. And while there was nothing dangerous or threatening about CL’s behavior, it was unsettling.

My seatmate and I agreed that there should be a rule that if one can help it, one can’t be weird on an airplane. Medical events happen all the time on airplanes. And on the ground, be as weird as you want, go ahead an cause your scene. Based on my diagnosis, CL could help it, and I was angry with her for scaring me.

Appropriate behavior is a subjective term, but it seems that lately air travellers have experienced more than their fair share of terrifying and confusing events on an airplane, many of which are again, probably medically related or involve Alec Baldwin playing Words With Friends. However in light of recent shakey-handed mid-flight iVideos, maybe we could all agree to remain on our best behavior while in the air. Even when we forgot where we put our brown backback.

Got a weird airplane story? Share it in the comments please!

Beth Spotswood writes two columns a week for the Culture Blog and full time for CBS San Francisco, in addition to head-writing and co-hosting of the satire webshow, Necessary Conversation. Winner of the 1986 City of Mill Valley Fire Prevention Poster Contest, Beth can be found on Twitter, and in the real world, where she also exists.